Ray has so avoided being investigated by police in San Diego in relation to the death of his first victim, Colleen Conaway who died in one of his seminars barely two months before he negligently caused three further deaths at a further seminar. Colleen’s death was inadequately investigated by police after Ray and some members of staff lied to police about the circumstances of Colleen’s death, after they had abandoned her body in a shopping plaza in San Diego.

James Ray and some members of his staff told carefully co-ordinated lies to the San Diego police and to participants (who only learned one of the death through the media). They also lied to some concerned staff members about it, instructing them to inform any inquirers that “We’ve found Colleen, she’s fine and decided not to return to the group”. That was after discussing the situation with his attorneys.

The cover up has been covered extensively on this site (see previous link), and a more complete description of events can be found here in a comment posted by a member of Colleen’s family.

The San Diego police did not investigate the death and Ray went on to cause three more deaths, for which he has just been convicted. The jury never got to hear about Colleen Conaway as the defense was successful in having mention of it excluded. A document from the Arizona prosecutors:

[The] Defendant also tries to disclaim any responsibility for the suicide of Colleen Conaway. However the significance [for the current trial] of the suicide is not in the tragedy itself; instead it is in the reaction of the JRI staff to the event. Participants report that they were never informed that one of the seminar participants had died and the seminar continued through the end without mention of this tragedy, including Defendant making sales pitches for future events.

Hearing for sentencing Tuesday June 29. [UPDATE Scroll down for coverage of sentencing]

There is excellent detailed coverage of the James Ray trial in Celestial Reflections blog (daily updates) and Salty Droid. I haven’t attempted to duplicate that here, but have been indicating a few of the salient points to come up on particular days and link to more detailed material.

June 21 Salty Droid has edited a video of defense attorney Luis Li’s closing statement. For a sympathetic view of Li’s argument, see this post from CNN’s In Session. They saw it as “one of the most impassioned closing arguments you are ever likely to hear”. It lasted more than 7 hours, and parts of it were indeed impassioned, especially the bits about his father, his mountain climbing experiences, the birth of his first son (which was the best day of his life)….The only thing Li did not mention was why the hell his client acted the way he did. The central strategy from the defense during the entire process has been to attempt to hide as many details of Ray’s behavior before, during and after his deadly fake sweat lodge. The strongest parts of Li’s argument are that Ray did not think people would die, and that participants were “free to leave at any time”.

For a more balanced account of Li’s closing statement than In Session’s breathless fawning one, see the video below, and read LaVaughn’s three posts on it (one, two, three). Much of the media coverage of this trial has been skewed in favor of Ray, and/or limited to reporting when someone in the courtroom cries. LaVaughn has covered it way better than any professional news source, in far greater detail, and despite having a clearly stated set of judgments as to Ray’s guilt, her analyses have been far more astute than any of the journalists present at the trial. Salty Droid’s coverage is of a somewhat different nature, being more focused on his up to the moment tweets and video highlights. The video below gives a fair impression of the degree of lunacy that the defense has been pushed by the absence of any plausible explanations for Ray’s behavior, other than that he is culpable and guilty as charged.

State prosecutor Sheila Polk will make a rebuttal before the the jury retires. (Her closing statement was last week, see below.)

I will post further updates on the James Ray Trial (set to begin on 16 Feb 2011) here for now. (For more background see here.) Scroll down for the first post covering general information and links to witness statements and prosecution documents is under 16 November.

(Please note, I’m posting from Europe, so I only have access to internet resources. Feel free to add any links in the comments.)

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James Ray Trial: Pre-Trial Hearings Updates

March 3 2011 Evidence regarding earlier sweat lodges will be allowed under certain conditions. Admissibility will be decided case by case, so to speak. That means that Ray’s serial recklessness during previous groups and sweat lodges will be included to a considerable degree, as evidence.

I’ll post more about the trial as it unfolds – bit hard to stay current from here in Germany. Excellent up to date blog coverage on Salty Droid’s James Ray Trial Updates page, with extensive background info.

James Ray and his staff (one of whom witnessed Colleen’s death) abandoned Colleen’s body, concealed her death from the other participants, left fake messages on her cell phone to make it look they were searching for her (recordings posted here), and lied to police.

They did all that while still finding time to enjoy the closing party for the event (see photos below the fold). Ray contacted his lawyers immediately, but never contacted Colleen’s family, did not refund the $5000 she paid, and even charged her a further $10,000 for a future group she had booked.

That future group was the infamous event where three more innocent people died — for which Ray has been charged with three counts of manslaughter.

Currently, Ray’s legal team are attempting to prevent Colleen’s death and the circumstances under which it occurred from being discussed in that trial.

Other New Age gurus still haven’t quite worked out what to do about James Arthur Ray.

Four successful scammers, and one odd man out

While they are all looking at their shoes or mumbling about “letting the court decide” or “maybe he let his ego get in the way”, none of them are going to want look too carefully at the trial in August.

This is because Ray’s defense rests on the argument that he is not responsible for the events that he planned and executed, causing death and severe injuries as a direct result of his actions.

In other words, James Ray’s “tragic accident” gambit rests not only on denying the most basic levels of personal responsibility, it also rests on a categorical, unconditional, flat out denial of their dearly beloved Law of Attraction.

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The “LoA” is one of the foundation stones of the ideology that has earned Ray and his mates, untold millions. It has served Ray well for many years, and was even the main reason why Oprah chose to make him a star.

But now he has no further need for it. In fact, any idea about taking responibility for ones actions is the last thing Ray will be wanting to hear about at his trial.

For his fellow scammers however, it is still one of the best money makers around. If it loses its popularity, who knows how long it will take them to find another invisible product that is so easy to sell, so resistant to attack from common sense, so amenable to being spread like a virus through the market place.

Detective Diskin: There’s been a lot of people calling us, upset about Colleen Conway and the way that was handled [by James Ray and his staff]…

Police interview with Megan Fredrickson

The San Diego Police Dept have so far failed to properly investigate the events surrounding death of the first (known) victim of James Ray, the con man, scammer and alleged manslaughterer who caused the death of four people within three months.

Staff members of James Ray International colluded to cover up this earlier death and led police to believe a lie.